The things that we do
by PlayingtheBone
Summary: an introspection? series, with five random poem/writings about the 5 founding titans  at least in the cartoon verse . Chapter 3: Raven
1. Starfire

Starfire.

There is but a sliver of golden red fire dancing on the edge of Jump City, but she can most definitely feel it fueling her veins.

She curls her toes into the lurid lavender of her carpet, and splays her fingers across the glass of her window, as if, just by the faint contact of the pads of thumbs through that cold barrier, to sustain herself on that thin strand of liquid gold.

For while her dark counterpart absorbs her powers from the subtlety of night, Kori is a lost tendril of the sun, absorbing from her source the heat and ferocity unfortunately necessary in her daily chores.

She hums tunelessly- perhaps some Earth-tune introduced to her by Richard- and her eyes, always a luminous green, glow far more substantially as they react to the light jumping vibrantly from the reflective surface of the city.

Of all the exciting things she knows on Earth, the sun is her favorite- not that Tamaran lacked such a impassioned flame to light its skies.

Rather, it is the one common trait of the two places she now refers to as home- both, the source from which her power stems- the shockingly emerald volts of energy that spring from her hands and eyes, or the strength deceptively hidden in her thin limbs.

Yet, the sun of Tamaran seems so commonplace now- a phosphorous green that sang constantly in her heart, mindlessly and quietly under the surface- it fuels the bloodlusting nature of her people, yet sits always under her skin in such a way that she forgets, briefly, that it is there.

But the sun of the Earth-people, the humans, is busy always, and seems to convey to her the strange life-blood of its inhabitants- their constant building and rebuilding and ferocity (even by Tameranian standards) and their kindness and warmth. She can feel it thrumming in her blood, violently and beautifully and always there, but never soft or muted within her.

She remembers, when she first arrived on the strange planet, the sudden feeling of red heat in her, tingling her skin and her hair and her eyes.

She remembers the first starbolt she ever issued on Earth, and the smouldering surprise of finding the immense wealth of energy to be harvested on Earth rather than her home planet.

And she remembers the eyes of a stranger- a human, the first she has ever met- veiled by a mask, yet burning as fiercely as her own with the strength of the sun.

It is fully light now, joyfully blazing across the city.

It is a warm day, and in the park, children and young couples come out to play.


	2. Cyborg

Cyborg.

His sneakers tap a solid bass beat against the sidewalk, King Nicotine bouncing on his tanned lips to the rhythm of his feet.

He doesn't actually smoke, mind you- years of athletic training as the star of the Jump City football team taught him as much- as did the constant stress of the superhero lifestyle.

The cancer stick hangs untouched, and lacking the peculiar aroma of burnt tobacco and ash often associated with such an item.

But his dad smoked- heavily and often- and so he always keeps the addicting things around.

Victor can see him in his mind's eye: the smoke swirling about his dark head, a mutant halo shifting and graying and dissipating unpredictably.

He sees his father's eyes- a strange confliction of fatherly warmth, and incalculable distance beneath his shadowed brows, and the pure white lab coats of his both his parents, as if to blend seamlessly into the cold bright walls of Star Labs.

The first experiment began at the young age of 10, with his father's hand gripping, vice-like, the not yet bionic Victor by the shoulder, and his mother's warmer palm moistly pressed against his smaller.

The walk was quiet, with a metronome cadence, and peaceful- the calm before the storm.

When they first plunged the needle into his spry brown skin, just below the base of his skull, he yelped, an instinctual reaction to the severe pain coursing through his spine, like a bolt of lightning plunging its sharpened edges into his nerves.

Again and again!

To be paralyzed- from the loving blows of his parents' sharpened steel and viscous serum!

But the scalpel never hurt so much as did the result- to witness his already extraordinary brain expanded and crackling with neurons.

He had seen the brain scans for himself- the dull colors of his brain swiftly enflamed, as if to signify the takeover of an invasive conqueror demoting Victor from his mind's owner to a mere vessel.

That his parents were obsessed with their work, Victor, turned Cyborg, had known.

That they loved, more fiercely than their son- their genetic miracle- the ingenuity of their IQ-increasing poison, came as a shock to him, as did the explosion that tore through his fragile, still-human flesh on the fateful night of his accident.

He remembers the first moments- the clear, vivid picture of cold silver and glowing blue encasing his arm and the soft electronic tone in his head- always playing, never ceasing.

And to look into his father's eyes, and see- not the concern and fear of a parent on the verge of losing their only prized possession- but the pride glowing in his eyes as he beholds the gargantuan, metallic form of his son-turned-android.

Cyborg snorts angrily at these thoughts, and shakes his head, reflexively dropping the cigarette from his lips and grinding it- white and untouched- into the city street.

He looks up at the bare remnants of his childhood home, on an avenue long forgotten by Jump City's avid young dwellers, and stares.

"Happy father's day."

* * *

><p>So, I believe I have some explaining to do…I know this is ridiculous and confusing, but it's OKAY. because I shall explain it now. Basically, when Cyborg was a kid, his parents, who were researchers at Star Labs, experimented on him, thus turning him into a genius (which he hated). After an explosion at the lab, his father saved him by giving him bionic limbs (which he also hated). I figure, if I was him, I would be angry that my parents would put me through pain at a young age because they loved their work and weren't satisfied by my original intelligence.<p> 


	3. Raven

Raven

Her thick hair is pulled into a high ponytail as she stares studiously forward, a small plastic wand poised between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand.

Sweep.

Sweep.

Sweep.

And she sits back, abruptly, into the back of her seat, eyeing her mirror image as it, too, pulls back and stares into a too familiar face, marred prettily about the eyes with bruise-color stains.

How is it that Starfire, alien and naive, has already accomplished this menial, human task- this national obligation of women everywhere that Raven, sitting beside her dresser, is completely incompetent about?

There are creases and disproportionate shading in the shimmering powder of her lids, uneven clumps hanging from her lashes, and streaks of the same-strange liquid reflecting upward below her eyes.

Against the canvas of her skin, concealer further emphasizes blemishes in a pasty grey cast, and her lips- the noxious hue of a dozen red roses.

Raven frowns, and, her hands reaching up with a warm towel, scrubs vigorously the graffiti from her expression.

Yes, she is fully aware that she is what the tabloids refer to as an 'unconventional beauty'.

But she would, indeed, like to feel the comforting weight of powders and liquids, despite the impracticality of such a situation.

She thinks, perhaps, that she would be more human, with such a face that she sees in her mind's eye- prettied and glossed over and dramatic under her hooded lids.

And again.

Sweep.

Sweep.

Sweep.

The frustration she feels in looking eye to eye with her mirror is surprising, even to her stoicly subdued senses.

With every soft touch of her painterly hand against her face, she imagines the miraculous transformation, and yet- in the opening of her eyes fully to the image parallel to hers, she sees still the same- the grey pallor and violet eyes, the shifting emotions beneath the coldness of her aura.

Still, and always a demon, even as she daubs gingerly at the masklike complexion.

When she again clears away the products and the balms and the elixirs that tote ingeniously manmade solutions to her facial insecurities, her face is slightly pinking from constant abuse at the hands of its owner.

She's pretty enough, Raven supposes, as she clears away the palettes of mysterious cakes and substances.

Perhaps she'll ask Kori, or Jen, or Toni to help her next time- she acknowledges that they are experts in this subject in comparison to her novice-like fumbling.

But for now, it's fine to go without.

It's fine.


	4. Robin

Robin

Contrary to the beliefs of his teammates, Richard's peculiar and disturbing habit of isolating himself for long periods of time with naught but a desk and old newspaper clippings, was not for the sole purpose of brooding, nor was it to prevent the last shard of his sanity from shattering irreplaceably.

Occasionally, when he excused himself early from dinner, or opted to research rather than watch a movie, he would be vaguely discomforted by Raven's knowing glances- he knew that when she had gone into his mind to develop that psychic link she had not purposely invaded his memories, yet he still felt naked and ashamed whenever she gave him a look.

For, in the recesses of Titan's Tower, he would take from his room a dusty reel- to his team mates, he had dismissed the retro object as an antique, given to him by Bruce- he joked that he might one day sell it for a million bucks, but no paper guarantees were to be made regarding its value.

It had taken him an astonishingly long amount of time to find a projector suited for such film, even for a young man with such an aptitude for research, but when the water-marred sepia of the photographs fell against the wall like the bittersweet fading of heat on summer-warmed skin, he was grateful for the work he had put in to obtain it.

The first picture struck him as a rather unfriendly one, as it always did. A young thumbprint had etched its way gracefully in the left-hand corner, and the veined wrinkles of the padded digit only slightly obscured the figures, standing on a rocky bluff. The man stood, with pale eyes and one hand shoved into his pocket, and another draped happily around the shoulders of a young woman with dark lips and a wistful smile. She was leaning against a small trailer with a bucket of paint, and had apparently written in neat lettering 'The Amazing Flying Graysons!' on its side, and she held tucked in her arms a bundled child.

He pressed the button, making the next slide click into place, and the bright eyes of a grinning young boy smiled out at him, clad in a skintight spandex suit with shining gold-star appliqués across the chest- in one hand, he held a balloon, and the other was thrust forward carrying a disgruntled frog.

As each picture rolled by, his eyes grew heavy, until he succumbed to the urge to close his lids behind the mask.

Robin scratched the back of his head idly, ignoring the fierce aching in his heart and the odd throbbing in his throat- even though he knew, with a sinking feeling, the truth, he still liked to pretend that the two reactions were a symptom, perhaps, of the dust caught in the old machine- it was well known that such particles could cause allergies.

As the last image shifted into place, he reached over to desk and fingered his MP3 player, sliding a headphone into his ear.

_The quiet rattling of an old drum skin, polished by the fingers of the generations._

_The squeak of a violin, glissing over octaves, and playing a minor, melancholy waltz to beat of the drum._

_The calloused pads of the hands, plucking softly on the old classical guitar, and the chords and the chromatic progression speeding up in time to the shake of the tambourine- _

The picture comes into full focus- the edges, to him, seem a little sharper and clearer.

She is staring shyly away from the camera, her lids dark and her lips pressed softly into the crown of his head.

Both are dressed in bright red leotards with high necks, and his broad hand is covering her significantly smaller one. Though he doesn't smile, in the strictest sense, there is a tentative curve to his mouth, and the warmth emanating from his eyes is rich and full in contrast to his rather lean, stoic face.

Robin shivers.

_Strike up, band and play…_


End file.
